BAIG: The terrorist threat is a global one, so our efforts need to be global too. As we step up our enforcement efforts, terrorists may well move to other platforms, particularly smaller ones which may not have the capacity to deal with this challenge. To help our community be more effective, we co-founded the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) with Google, Microsoft and Twitter, and established a shared industry database of “hashes” – unique digital “fingerprints” – for violent extremist images. By sharing this information with each other, we can identify terrorist content on our platforms and delete it swiftly before it can spread. The database now contains over 100,000 images and 8,000 videos, meaning that any attempt to upload them will be blocked before it goes live. The GIFCT invites smaller companies to be part of the shared industry database, and has now reached over 100 companies. AF: Fake news is a big issue in Indonesia and it is a serious factor in the upcoming presidential election in 2019. What is Facebook doing to combat fake news? BAIG: We do not want Facebook to be a place where people spread misinformation. It is harmful to our community and makes the world less informed, particularly in the context of elections. We cannot combat false news alone – it requires a concerted effort across industry, academics, civil society and government. A key part of our strategy is around removing fake accounts, which can be a major distributor of misleading content. We block millions of fake accounts at registration every day, and we are continuously working to improve our systems to detect fake accounts more quickly. We are making progress; in the first quarter of this year, we removed nearly 600 million fake accounts globally, 98.5% of which we detected before anyone reported them to us. Third-Party Fact-Checking is another important part of our fight against misinformation, partnering with Poynter-certified fact-checkers. Once a fact-checker marks something as false, we demote that post and similar posts, reducing future impressions by an average of 80%. We also use these ‘false’ ratings to inform our technology, to help us better detect future false stories. This means that over time we are getting smarter and faster in determining what articles might be hoaxes and sending them to fact-checkers to review. We now have third-party factchecking in 17 countries, including in Indonesia with our partner Tirto.id. We also want to empower people to decide for themselves what to read, trust, and share. Last year we created an educational tool to give people tips to identify false news and provided a founding grant for the News Integrity Initiative to invest in long-term strategies for news literacy. AF: The “echo-chamber” phenomenon on social media has segregated the supposedly open digital public sphere. Is there any technological answer to address this, or does the solution lie somewhere else? BAIG: People often talk about social media creating ‘echo chambers,’ only allowing people to hear one point of view. I believe the opposite may be true. Remember what it used to be like: 20 years ago, we had limited news sources and would rely on just one or two, whether it was your newspaper of choice or the 7 o’clock news bulletin. Today, a person is friends with a diverse network of hundreds of people on Facebook who have different opinions and worldviews. Through this network, we are exposed to a much broader spectrum of content and perspective than we ever had before. Research suggests that people who use social media for news end up using sources from across the political spectrum and viewpoints, far more than people who do not. But we certainly have a responsibility to ensure that Facebook does not contribute to polarisation. We have developed dedicated features to help. Related Articles, for example, is a feature we launched at the end of 2017, which shows additional news articles underneath an article posted in News Feed. This is designed to give more context around a particular story – often giving the alternative perspective, or an article by third-party fact-checkers. AF: There is growing pessimism about the democratising power of social media after all the exposure of its “dark sides.” What is your take on this? BAIG: When talking about the abuse on Facebook, it is easy to forget that the vast majority of our community, both in Asia-Pacific and around the world, uses the platform in positive and constructive ways. I believe strongly in the incredible potential of social media and, in particular, for Facebook’s potential to be a positive force for democracy around the world. Facebook gives a voice to people of all ages and political beliefs, it encourages debate and the healthy exchange of ideas, and it makes leaders more accountable to their constituents. But it is not just about politics. Today, Facebook supports millions of small businesses in Asia-Pacific, the majority of which attribute the growth – or even existence – of their business to Facebook. Take Dea Valencia, a 22-year-old entrepreneur from Central Java, who created Batik Kultur in 2011 to sell her Batik-inspired fashion designs, and now employs nearly 70 people, including a number of disabled employees, to manage the huge demand coming from her 60,000 Facebook fans. Beyond this, we see examples of people using Facebook to do incredible things every single day, whether it is bringing communities together in times of crisis, allowing people to shine a crucial light on events, or helping otherwise isolated people and communities stay in touch. There will always be those who try to abuse our platform, and those people are getting smarter. But we will not give up. We will have to keep working twice as hard to stay one step ahead of those bad actors. Ms. Gullnaz Baig is Facebook’s Asia-Pacific Head on Counter-Terrorism Policy where she oversees crossfunctional efforts to counter terrorism and other forms of extremism, particularly for Asia-Pacific. 21 — ISSUE 5/2018